3rd Gen Shiny Discussion/FAQ [Read all of first post if you don't want an infraction]

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3rd Gen Shiny Discussion/FAQ [Read all of first post if you don't want an infraction]

Okay, the last thread was getting quite long and had some problems, so time for a new start. You must follow these rules for the thread if you don't want to be infracted.
- All general Serebiiforums Rules and 3rd Generation Discussion Rules, of course.
-You may not go offtopic in this thread at all. This is discussion of and questions about shinies only. This means no talking about your favorite ice cream flavor or which Pokemon is the coolest, or anything like that. This also means none of the ever-annoying "congrats" or "good luck" messages. If you feel the need to say that to someone, do it on their profile.
-This is the 3rd generation, which means Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed, LeafGreen, Colosseum, XD, Box, Channel... I think that's all of the games you can actually get Pokemon from. Anyways, that means no Diamond/Pearl/Platinum or Gold/Silver/Crystal shiny discussion/help. This isn't the place to discuss your new chain or the Odd Egg.
-No "semi-legit" (aka still hacked but makes people feel better about themselves) or "hacked" shinies. No one can stop you from cheating to get Faraway Island on your Emerald, but don't share it with us. Don't post here saying you got a cheated Birth Island ticket to get a shiny Deoxys or something.-No posting unless you've actually obtained a shiny. "Targets" overran the last thread and many of them either were never completed or took weeks to complete so that the poster posted over and over again about the same shiny. Not anymore. None of this "I'm going to start SRing for Moltres today" or "I've hatched 580 Magbies and no shiny yet" or the even worse "I have a SECRET target and I SRed 5784905689403 times for it" or something.

Also, I have to make three posts to make everything fit with the stupid glitches with this forum. No, that does not give the rest of you permission to double-post.

Little Miss Stalinist/Secret Al-Qaeda agents (i.e. Ellie) would be a ***** even if she was a conserative republican. What makes her the way she is happens to be the fact that the webmaster of this site let's her behave like this. (Of course, I would never make a liberal a staff member at any forum I'd be in charge of, regardless.)

[21:03] <+Skiks> ellie is out of context
[21:04] <+Skiks> the experience

1. Q: Shiny Pokemon? What are those?
A: Shiny Pokemon first appeared in the Gold and Silver games for the Gameboy Color. Basically, they are alternately colored Pokemon (for example, shiny Charizard is black instead of orange).

2. Q: Wow! Are shiny Pokemon more powerful?
A: Unfortunately, no. The ONLY difference between shinies and regular Pokemon is the color. They’re pretty much just for bragging rights.

3: Q: How can I find a shiny Pokemon?
A: Every single catchable Pokemon that you find (Eggs, Gifts, Wild, etc) has a 1/8192 chance of being shiny. There is no way (in this generation) to find any quicker, so you'll just need to rely on luck.

4: Q: But I’ve seen over 10000 Pokemon in my game and haven’t found a shiny yet! That can’t be right!
A: 1/8192 is a probability. That doesn’t mean that after 8192 Pokemon, you will automatically find a shiny.
A good example of this is when you roll dice. You have a 1/6 chance of getting any particular number when you roll, such as the number 2. That doesn’t mean that you will roll a 2 in six rolls, or that your second roll will be a 2, etc.
The same goes for shiny Pokemon. You may find a shiny on your first try, or within a hundred tries, or maybe not until 10000 tries.
To delve in a bit deeper, picture that whenever you encounter a Pokemon, a random number between 1 and 8,192 is generated. Let’s say that the number 500 is the “shiny number.” If 500 happens to be the random number that’s generated, the Pokemon will be shiny. If the number is anything else, it will be a normal Pokemon. Nice odds, aren’t they?

5: Q: If I breed a shiny Pokemon, will the baby from the Egg be shiny as well?
A: Unlike in G/S/C, where you had a higher chance of hatching shiny offspring when the parents were shiny, this is NOT true for any of the 3rd generation games. Every Pokemon has the same odds of being shiny, no matter what.

6: Q: What is this soft resetting/SRing thing I’ve been hearing about?
A: Soft resetting is when you press Start + Select + A + B to reset your GBA (just like turning the system off and on). It’s helpful when trying to find a shiny of a Pokemon you can save in front of, such as your starter at the beginning, legendaries, etc. It's faster than turning the game on and off, and it's less stressful on the system/batteries. Save, see if the Pokemon is shiny, if not SR your game and try again. Just like finding any shiny, this depends completely on luck, but if you’re patient you should eventually get your shiny. Keep in mind that this could take hours or days with luck, and months and months without.

8: Q: How do I know if I have a shiny Pokemon?
A: Besides the change in color, a shiny Pokemon will sparkle when it comes into battle. There are also a couple changes on its summary page, which you can see on the main site’s shiny page (link above).

9. Q: When will I know if I’ve gotten a shiny starter?
A: When you’re choosing your starter, the game will show you a picture of each Pokemon. This picture will NOT show you whether that Pokemon is shiny or not. You will have to choose it and check its summary, or use it in battle, to find out if it’s shiny or not.

10. Q: Can I save before hatching my Egg, and reset until I have a shiny?
A: No. All of the Egg's values are set once you take it. However, you can save before taking it and have a chance.

Little Miss Stalinist/Secret Al-Qaeda agents (i.e. Ellie) would be a ***** even if she was a conserative republican. What makes her the way she is happens to be the fact that the webmaster of this site let's her behave like this. (Of course, I would never make a liberal a staff member at any forum I'd be in charge of, regardless.)

[21:03] <+Skiks> ellie is out of context
[21:04] <+Skiks> the experience

Colosseum and XD-Specific Shiny FAQ/Info
because it has much weirder stuff than the other games

General Stuff
Yes, Pokemon CAN be shiny in Colosseum/XD!
Shiny Pokemon, just like in the Gameboy games are very rare and some are even pretty, the chances to find one is 1 in 8192, that dosent mean after 8191 battles the next pokemon will be shiny, because every battle has a 1 in 8192 chance of being a shiny pokemon.
Your shinies may look pretty in the GBA games but when you put them onto colosseum or XD they will look different:
Shiny Pokemon that are completely different colours then the 'normal' ones are noticable, like Dragonite is dark green instead of yellow, very noticable! The only exceptions are Shadow Lugia and Smeargle, who are explained below.

How to identify a shiny Shadow Pokemon
When a shiny Pokemon is sent out in Colosseum/XD, rather than the stars from the GBA games, two orange orbs fly out. Also, there's the obvious color difference. Note that many Pokemon have a different shiny form in Colo/XD than in the GBA games.

Shadow Lugia
A Shiny Shadow Lugia has the same color as a normal Shadow Lugia, but it has the two orange orbs flying around it, enabling you to tell the difference.

Smeargle
A normal Smeargle in Colosseum/XD has a red tail but a shiny one has a green tail, which is the opposite of the GBA games. What's the reason for this problem? In GSC, a shiny Smeargle had a green tail while a normal one had a reddish-brown tail. For some reason, the developers decided to switch this in the 3rd gen. Colosseum and XD, however, use the same models as the Gen 1 and 2 Stadium games, so the Smeargle colors reflect that of GSC.

If you have any questions about Colosseum and XD shinies or think something is asked frequently enough to be added here, you can PM me.

Little Miss Stalinist/Secret Al-Qaeda agents (i.e. Ellie) would be a ***** even if she was a conserative republican. What makes her the way she is happens to be the fact that the webmaster of this site let's her behave like this. (Of course, I would never make a liberal a staff member at any forum I'd be in charge of, regardless.)

[21:03] <+Skiks> ellie is out of context
[21:04] <+Skiks> the experience

By the way, you might want to edit the topic title; shouldn't it say 'Discussion/FAQ'?

EDIT2:
Shiny hunting is fun.

EDIT3: I forgot about the 1 post per page rule :S Anyway, here's the (now deleted) second post:
Just got a shiny Anorith.
Relaxed - 28/2/4/7/11/27

Also, I didn't get a chance to add this, but on the same day as I got Beldum etc, I also caught this:
Rash - 4/10/18/12/7/20

Emerald's 'random' number generator is fun to exploit (note that 4 of the shinies have the same IVs and nature) :P

Slightly different shinies this time.
Relaxed - 27/7/11/2/20/20

I also went shiny hunting on my first Emerald cart yesterday; and got these shinies (all Bold - 27/8/8/28/14/31):
This doesn't count multiples of the same shiny (I caught 2 Poochyena and Oddish, and found loads more of shinies I already had, including 3 shiny Swablu in a row).

EDIT4: What's with the 1 post per page rule, anyway? I see there's a big discussion surrounding 'shiny files'. Jibaku, they do exist; a 'shiny file' is simply when the earliest shiny spread (with that ID and SID) is at around the time it takes to SR. As such, it makes it much more likely to find a shiny while SRing. However, this is the only place I've seen the term used (probably since the Smogon Wi-fi community doesn't really care about non-competitive shinies).
Also, more Bold shinies:
Seedot has a 1&#37; appearance rate o.o

As I was training my Charmeleon in the Desert, I was wondering around battling trainers and Pokemon. I wasn't paying attention and up pops a Shining Trapinch. I was button mashing Flamethrower, and had hit it when I noticed it. Lucky for me, Flamethrower was out of PP. I chucked an Ultra ball at it and it was caught. It has a rash nature, but it doesn't really matter what it has as a nature. I'll only use it after I clone it to evolve in my Diamond.

3DS Friend Code: 2535-4249-2325
PM me if you add me for X and Y so I can add you too! I apparently give Sandile, Nuzleaf, and Liepard in the Friend Safari.

I have caught 4 Shinys in my Emerald Version (at different times, of course).

Gulpin - Gulpin was my first shiny Pokemon in my Emerald game. I encountered it very early in the game. I was busy power-leveling my team in the outskirts of Slateport City when a Shiny Gulpin appeared. I asked my younger brother if my eyes weren't deceiving me, and luckily for me, they weren't. Some time after I beat the game, I evolved it into Swalot.

Spinda - In the same Emerald game, I encountered a Shiny Spinda (along the soot-covered route, of course).

Mightyena - At one point, I decided to EV-Train my Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza. I was bored and I needed to do something. I was EV-Training my Groudon in the outskirts of Fortree when a Shiny Mightyena appeared!

Skarmory - Also in the same game, I caught a Shiny Skarmory. I forgot the rest of the details.

I gave away all of my Shiny Pokemon so that I could obtain a Lunatone, the last Pokemon that I needed to complete my Hoenn Dex. Yes, I was that desperate.

Last edited by leon25270; 6th February 2009 at 2:50 PM.
Reason: Grammar correction...

My first shiny was a shniy Poocheya, it was going to be th last time i turned on that game, is was going to restart and do it, agin, but i deceided to say a last harah and visit all the routes fro old times sake... and in route 101 i found it....my first shiny...ill never trade it...

Shiny File? There's no such thing. Each individual pokemon has a 1 in 8192 chance of being shiny. The only thing that's set early in the game is Latios/as, and even that is still a 1 in 8192 chance.

Within all of my years of Pokemon, I have never heard of this at all. I don't know where he got that information from. It could be true, but some of the things he said were contradictory of each other, so it was rather difficult to understand. Like I said, I have never heard of such a thing, so I don't know anything about it.

I don't deny the possibility that it's true, but I'm just saying that it sounds rather questionable. I don't think there's any way of knowing for sure.

Last edited by emeraldellie; 8th February 2009 at 8:51 PM.
Reason: more than one post in one page

Within all of my years of Pokemon, I have never heard of this at all. I don't know where he got that information from. It could be true, but some of the things he said were contradictory of each other, so it was rather difficult to understand. Like I said, I have never heard of such a thing, so I don't know anything about it.

Sorry, I was the one who started that thread.
I guess it must have been a rumor, I'd just been searching round the internet for shiny catching tips and I heard some people talking about these "shiny files" saying that it lowered the chances of shiny finding to 1/50! Thought I may as well give it a go if there was a chance.
Shame it's not true x3

I'm sure half of the members won't believe me and Wichu, but I swear, it's true o.o

As the thread creator on Smogon, I guarantee that this is real and amazing

Going after Shiny Kyogre
26/4/22/28/24/31 Timid

Captured Shiny Latias with that spread

Mods you can delete my previous post if you want, but I need to post to clarify stuff.

I don't deny the possibility that it's true, but I'm just saying that it sounds rather questionable. I don't think there's any way of knowing for sure.

Excuse me? Questionable? This is 100% true and confirmed. There's a Youtube video somewhere that tells you how to capture a 30/27/11/22/26/31 Timid HP Ground Latios. If you can't get it with shinies, do it with normal spreads first (well you need your Secret ID for the shinies so I can understand if you don't want to). Many people have been very successful with this, and so did I (Captured 4 great IVed Shinies with this).

Of course, the reason you haven't hear it is because this info is relatively new (the frames were discovered in December 2008, Emerald's glitchy RNG was discovered over a year ago). Also this frame thingy was discovered by the Japanese, which made it tough to get it here. I took the liberty of getting that info.

Charmander - I was breeding for one (in Emerald) to use in the Orre Colosseum in Pokemon XD. Has a Serious nature, and had pretty good IVs except for Defense. You can see it in my Orre Colosseum vids in Youtube. Here it is in one of those vids:

Squirtle - I was breeding for a defensive one (in Emerald) and ended up getting a shiny. Its IVs are: 25/31/27/16/6/30 and its nature is Docile.

Bayleef - In Pokemon Colosseum surprisingly for me. I was on my tenth or so playthrough of the game, and the Mystery Troop had a shiny Bayleef with him. It is now a Meganium. It has been a while since I played that file though.

Mods you can delete my previous post if you want, but I need to post to clarify stuff.

Excuse me? Questionable? This is 100% true and confirmed. There's a Youtube video somewhere that tells you how to capture a 30/27/11/22/26/31 Timid HP Ground Latios. If you can't get it with shinies, do it with normal spreads first (well you need your Secret ID for the shinies so I can understand if you don't want to). Many people have been very successful with this, and so did I (Captured 4 great IVed Shinies with this).

Of course, the reason you haven't hear it is because this info is relatively new (the frames were discovered in December 2008, Emerald's glitchy RNG was discovered over a year ago). Also this frame thingy was discovered by the Japanese, which made it tough to get it here. I took the liberty of getting that info.

The reason I said it was questionable was because in addition to having no clue as to what they were talking about, the guy in that thread said this:

Though my own file is not a 'shiny file', I have still caught 8 shinies, including three legendaries, within the past few days through careful timing.
The problem with this is that if you don't have a 'shiny file', it's literally impossible to SR a shiny. You'll either have to restart, or calculate exactly how long to wait with each SR (as I did).

Which if you read it, makes absolutely no sense. Why would he say that it's literally impossible to reset for a shiny without a shiny file, and then say that it is possible and that he's done it several times?

Originally Posted by Freakshow

Also there is no such thing as a shiny file. Remember that Shininess is created by a combination of Trainer ID, Secret ID and PID.

You even say yourself that there isn't such thing as a shiny file. The original poster's question was regarding the RNG and the shiny files, so yes, part of it was definitely questionable.

I don't know anything about advanced computer programming, and I don't care to figure out how to reset for a shiny in Emerald. I'm just saying what makes sense, and I'm trying to help out here.

Which if you read it, makes absolutely no sense. Why would he say that it's literally impossible to reset for a shiny without a shiny file, and then say that it is possible and that he's done it several times?

I meant that if you SR normally (i.e. go into the battle/pick up the Pokémon straight away). If you wait the exact amount of time, anyone can get a shiny. Sorry for the confusion :S

As for 'shiny numbers', I admit that some files have a higher chance of encountering shinies through SRing. But that's only because those files' ID and SID happen to make one of the spreads occurring at around the time it takes to SR shiny. I suppose that you could call that a 'shiny file'.

EDIT: Thanks ChaosAngel, and congrats on the Tangela! Did you know I actually encountered 4 shiny Relicanth? I only caught one, because due to the RNG, they'd all be exactly the same, so I may as well have cloned my existing one and saved time. I only found 4 anyway; i.e. every Relicanth I found that day was shiny :P

EDIT2: You know there's some guy on Smogon that's caught even more than me? I'm still envious of Freakshow/Jibaku's ones, though (damn your awesome luck).

Well, there does exists such thing as a shiny file, but it's a fan-term, just like "shiny", wich is a fan-term. The real term for "shiny" is "Alt. Color" because when you get interviewed by someone in D/P, go to "A" and you will see "Alt. Color" somewhere.

A shiny file is when someone has a shiny number in the early seconds in their game.
Let's take as an example someone wich his knowledge about RNG is 0&#37;. He would have more chance to get a shiny if the first shiny number was at 0.44225 than if it was at 27.6633, because someone not knowledgeable about RNG is more likely to start right away than wait 27.6633 seconds before battle.

Now there wouldn't be such thing as a Shiny File if the RNG started from a different place everywhere.

Spoiler:- ChaosAngel.:

Originally Posted by ChaosAngel

[1]Congrats to all shinies[/1], especially to Wichu with all these [2]Emerald RNG shinies.. o.O[/2]

1- Read the first post.
2- Emerald RNG isn't something I would consider being lucky finding 3-4 shinies with great IV's.

Also remember the new rule, one post per page. Edit your old one if you need to add something before a new page is created. The only exception is if I deleted/merged posts to make less pages after you'd already posted.

Little Miss Stalinist/Secret Al-Qaeda agents (i.e. Ellie) would be a ***** even if she was a conserative republican. What makes her the way she is happens to be the fact that the webmaster of this site let's her behave like this. (Of course, I would never make a liberal a staff member at any forum I'd be in charge of, regardless.)

[21:03] <+Skiks> ellie is out of context
[21:04] <+Skiks> the experience

Shiny Tangela, LeafGreen

Shiny Tangela
Yeah it came today in the afternoon after about 500 battles since last night, I did about 12,000 battles for Heracross before hand over the last week but I decided to go for Heracross in the future instead. Which was a good thing as it was a Rash natured shiny Tangela so yeah good job I did leave Pattern Bush lol.

I need 2 more shinies from Ruby or LeafGreen before I can Pal Park my shinies as I currently have Tangela, Zapdos, Articuno and Moltres ready so far. Congrats ChaosAngel on your Shiny Tangela and yeah your one has really good special defense and mine has like 95 at level 100 once its evolved lol. Also congrats to anyone else who found a shiny lately and good luck if you haven't found one lately.

lol @ 3 shiny Tangela in one day.
Funnily enough, I had only just started hunting it again after training a Staryu up so that I could run from non-shiny Tangela without any troubles. I tried the Sweet Scent trick for about 15 minutes. I didn't save and I didn't moves and just Sweet Scented for 15 minutes, but nothing appeared, and I accidently moved so I stopped. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me to take a pics of the encounter. Amazed at the mild nature, which is very usable.
Here are a couple more pics.Stats.Moves.

I was going to SR for Darkrai, but you can't leave the island once you go there so I'm going to leave it there for now. Might chain some shiny Croagunk and then start to SR for the Regis in Plat. I will probably restart my LG file, because I want to eventually SR for Lapras.